maryland-bills-fan

I think that the "BPA" discussions are missing an important part of what is involved. I think most people are fixated solely on the best player available who is immediate plug-and-play. A guy who did a number of highlight film plays for a major college gets a lot of attention. A superior athlete from a small school with more potential is less likely. A guy who played out of position (pro position) is down rated. I like to classify the players in the following two criteria: Ceiling (very high, high, medium, low) AND Floor (very high, high, medium, low) In the first round you want high/high people. (duh) In the middle rounds you have to make a choice. Do you want a (medium/medium) guy who will probably be an adequate player or backup? or do you want a (high /low) guy who might be a great player, but might also be a flame-out and not even stick in the league? In the lower rounds, most of the time they are drafting guys with (upside/ medium-low) because that is all that is left. It does make a difference in how you draft in the 2nd to 4th round- go after a superior athlete who might be better than expected or go with a safe, average type guy? Last year the Bills spent draft picks to move up twice in the first round to take (high/high) guys, rather than go with one (high/high) guy and multiple shots at (medium/medium) guys. Another aspect of drafting is that "BPA" does NOT seem to consider the value of the position or the frequency that humans exist with that position's skill set. An example is OL center. "Smarts" is more needed there than at OG, since the center inputs blocking assignments at the line of scrimmage. How do you compare "smarts" versus blocking and pulling ability? There are a lot of good running backs- how to compare the BPA RB and BPA TE? There has to be some sort of "scaling factor" comparing the positions as well as a year-to-year factor based upon the strength of the college class at that position. I guess I don't know what "BPA" really means, although many people are very sure that they absolutely know.

Remember that the draft value charts were, and still are, set up for the value of a draft pick in drafting a STARTING QB!. I would like to see someone ( not me!) go through 5 years of the entire draft and tabulate :[1] draft position distribution by position, & [2] success of each pick (all pro, starter, playing time as independent variables).

The gist is that teams should draft a high QB even when they have a good one/franchise type. Not only does this give a backup and safety net for the present starter, but also does the following, I think. You keep the newbie for a few years and he becomes somebody who has learned the NFL game and has increased in value. You then can trade him off for a good draft pick return and get a great return on your investment. That doesn't make sense for the Bills right now but I wonder if a reason for having Anderson and Barkey on the roster might be for their value for a mid-season trade to a team that had a QB injury? https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2019/4/3/18293446/arizona-cardinals-revolutionize-nfl-draft-josh-rosen-kyler-murray

Tight end is a 3rd or 4th round pick this year. A nice thing about TE is that you can shuffle in different one-dimensional players to create mismatches FASTER than the defense can substitute and change defensive formation. A slow, blocking TE still has to be covered by the defense and if he is ignored even the slow guys can run 40 yards in less than 5 seconds. Safeties do the 40 about a half second slower. If you estimate the separation, it is about 8-9 yards. So if you are lined up on the other teams "40" and give a slow TE a 9 yard head start or uncovered that much, he will beat a safety to the end zone. My point is that you can get almost the same mileage from 2 tight ends with different performance envelopes as you can from somebody drafted in the first round. Generational talents are different, but the cost to the rest of the team's positions is too high to be doing a crapshoot for a position where they block most of the time. (see https://www.nj.com/eagles/2019/03/nfl-combine-2019-results-tight-end-40-yard-dash-times-including-noah-fant-irv-smith-caleb-wilson-more.html ) https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/news/2019-nfl-combine-top-40-yard-dash-times-at-each-position-as-unheralded-safety-posts-fastest-run-at-indy/

Bringing up new england was to find out and show what a long-term successful team does. Regardless of Brady and Bellycheck, their o-line did not keep them from winning a lot of games. ANYWAY, with regards to the upcoming draft, I think that the Bills might draft ONE O-lineman in the first 3 rounds (top of the 1st) and thereafter will take 2 "high ceiling/low floor" guys, 4th round or later. The long range plan (IMHO) is to try to add one very good cheap OL player a year. New England, with the evil genus gnome running the show, seems to be using that strategy. Use the draft for top end talent and look hard at young, cheap veteran talent for place fillers or single dimension guys. For "Very high ceiling guys" with "high floors", you have to use your top pick. Other "high ceiling guys" that are available will only be found with low floors and in the later rounds. Take a few crapshoots there every year. "Medium ceiling/medium floor" guys are guys you don't draft- use the veterans, who have already been trained in the NFL and have a track record. They can fill in around the superior players and you have film and can figure out how. (That is what coaches are for).

Well, I think that it is a good idea to model your practices on teams that have been very successful and a first step is to see what they do and how it is different from what others and you do. The Pats have been to a lot more playoffs and SB's than the Bills, especially lately. What is obvious from the OP is that the Pats, to a large extent, draft very few OL in the first two rounds (two players in the last 11 years). An idea, that we all have seen teams and pundits express is that you can get good OL in the 2nd and 3rd round- the Pats seem to skip that and go fishing in the 4th to 6th rounds- and also draft relatively few o-linemen. I think that there is food for thought there. What I wanted to see is where people would go with the OP list. What I see is that the Pat's rely on identifying other teams good, experienced but not overly priced FA players and built their 0-line with them. NOT with the conventional wisdom of drafting 2nd, 3rd rounders and coaching them up. There have been some articles suggesting that college o-line players are coached to a different, spread-offense, not-hand-in-the-dirt method and come unprepared for the pro game. Also, because of the limited hitting with pads practices allowed by the union- it is harder to coach them up. Hence, veterans with a few years of okay performance are better to get than 2nd 3d rounders. That is what I see the Bills doing. Soooooo, I see the Bills draft strategy/o-line build as follows: #1 get a bunch of young, relatively inexpensive veterans and sort out the better ones. #2 Maybe draft a super o-lineman in the top half of the 1st round if the guy is very very high ceiling and floor- but only if the guy is going to be a great starter for 5+ years, and #3 try a few very high ceiling/low floor crapshoot guys in the later rounds. Gee, have you looked at the final division standings for the last 10 years?

The Patriots have done well the last decade or so. I was wondering how the used the draft to get offensive linemen. First 5 rounds only.. Data from https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/nwe/draft.htm year......round-overall pick......position 2018 1-23 OT 2017 3-85 OT 6-211 OT 2016 3-78 G 2015 4-111 G 4-131 C 2014 4-105 G 4-140 OT 2013 none 2012 none 2011 1-17 OT 2010 4-141 G 2008 none 2007 5-171 OT Top half of the first round or low 4th round seems to cover it.

Passing on stuff that I have read- several sources think that Gary is a very athletic guy with great measurables, who, because of the college scheme, did not show up as a college star. The expect him to be a great pro and feel that he is way underrated. So, I expect him to have a shot at an all-pro and the best DL that we could get at 9 in a very good year for DL.

Elsewhere on the "Stadium Wall" I saw a reference to an article about college & pro offensive linemen (If anybody can pull this up, please post it). The gist was that college o-linemen play in spread offensives without their hand on the ground and are unprepared for the pro game. In addition to this, labor union rules prevent them from being quickly coached up in the pro's because of practice in shorts and lack of actual contact drills. Therefore, the young veteran players, who have gotten into a season or two of games, perhaps as a backup, are very valuable. They have "learned the ropes" and the ones who never made it have been culled. The Bills have gone out and gotten a bunch (5-7) of these young veterans and are going to let them fight it out for the limited roster spots. An alternative, for the Bills to improve the line is to spend a top 20 or top 10 draft pick on a "can't miss(?)" high ceiling/high floor guy and plug him in right away. What has changed is that teams used to be able to use the 2nd to 4th round to draft a "medium ceiling/medium floor" guy and coach him up to get an average starter (and ocassionaly a good starter). That is less sucessfull these days because of the practice rules hinder the player development. So, I expect the Bills to draft o-linemen in only two ways. 1st in the top 10-20 and also a few "high-ceiling/low floor" cheap (with regard to draft pick cost) guys in the 4th+ rounds. We could carry one or two of these guys and hope for the best. https://nflspinzone.com/2019/04/01/nfl-draft-2019-sleepers-offensive-line/

Gary in the first. A linebacker in the lower first.

I think that they will not draft an offensive lineman in the first two rounds, but will go for a big athletic IOL or OT in the 3rd round. This would be a medium floor, high ceiling guy who would be practice squad or backup for a year or two. Defensive line and linebacker are more likely in the first two rounds.

Trade down and get Gary

We could go to war with the OL people that we have already. OL need a couple of years to learn the new game NFL football. We now have one or two layers of guys who are thu the learning curve and survived. I think we will go for high ceiling guys with the first 3 picks (which might be in the top 40 players drafted) and high ceiling low floor guys with the rest of the draft.

What other position moves the ball reliably as many yards as the punter and KO player?

Jim Beam and coke. a COLA....... Gernonamo !!!

That could very well happen. I think if there isn't someone that they think is very special- a potential generational type talent- then the idea of selling lower picks to get that guy is not in play this year. The couple highest DL will be gone before it is our turn and it would cost way too much to move up. (look at the draft value chart). It would be nice if we could trade down a bit and then still get almost the same guy as we could at #9 as well as additional lower pick. I think there is not a lot of difference between the top 5 offensive tackles or the 5->10 top defensive linemen. Maybe a trade down from #9 and a trade up from #40 could give us two good players in the 20's. Strategy last year was to use first two picks for players with very high ceiling but also a low-to-medium floor. After that they went for best players with good ceiling and good floor. 19 hours ago, TigerJ said: Essentially it sounds as if the OP is saying you might have a choice between a player who had a real productive college career and a player that for some reason didn't seem to be as productive as one would like, but has elite athleticism and looks as if he might be a generational type player, you role the dice on the potential generational player in the first or second round. An example might be Rashan Gary, who at 6'4" and 277 lbs ran a ridiculous 4.58 40. He's strong and has long arms. He is just an incredible athlete. However, he was not super productive in college. Some have speculated that his underperformance might have something to do with the way he was used. On the flip side Christian Wilkins is considered a pretty safe pick. He's an excellent athlete. He's technically sound and he's had a long productive college career. The OP is saying, you gamble on Gary's upside rather than taking the safer pick. After the first couple rounds, maybe then college production begins to be more of a factor. At least that's how I take it.

You can do that. It would mean that for every draft pick, you looked for the "highest ceiling" player and ignore where the "floor" was on that player. You would have a lot of misses but might get one good player in the 2nd to 7th round. You would then have to fill in the roster with hold-overs and free agents. The danger is that you might have a team sprinkled with great players, that the opponents could work around and attack the weaker players. I think that beyond the first and maybe high second round, you go for OK/good players to build depth and improve the average quality of your starters. Sorry for the use of ..... to indicate the gaps where a paragraph end and start should be. I often write on a system where the "enter key" is not a "line feed", that can be followed by a "tab" to give the indentation of a new paragraph, but is a "publish" key. Here, I thought I was doing good to not hit top side of the screen thinking it was the carriage return lever for each new line.

Thank you. You explained and said it much better than I did. Usually it takes a while to get a concept sorted out into a clear explanation. I think that is what they did with both last year's 1st round picks. It looks like Allen worked and Edmunds (first teenager drafted in theFIRST ROUND nfl since 2007) is still a TBD. My guess is that if we see them trade up, they are going for what they think is a very high ceiling player and if they trade down, they think there are a lot of similar players and want to get the most for their draft picks. I think they used to but have stopped it because of some union problem......

The difference is that the second guy might have a 20% chance of being a "60" and 80% chance of being a "130" after a couple of years. The first guy is a pretty centain ok to good starter, but never will be a very superior player...... Most of the time, I think that coaches play it safe and go for the more sure thing. ..... I like the idea of taking a risk to try to get real difference makers. For Example, would you rather have Josh Rosen or Josh Allen right now? A guy who played at UCLA or Wyomimg?

What is "BPA"? The guy who will be a plug and play starter but never get above 20th at his position? Or a guy who will be a marginal starter for the first year or two, but then be a top 5 player in the league at that position? ..... A college guy who developed slowly in college, or who played in an inferior league, or who didn't play a pro-type scheme might not be the "BPA" with the first definition. Do you think that Taylor would able to be a Jim Kelly type player or just an adequate stop-gap who might win some games for you but never could dominate good teams in the post-season?

nope. guys like Edmunds. Edmunds is young , has a lot of tools, no head problem and might develop into a HOF guy. We could have drafted a guy who would be better in his first couple of years. that's okay. ideas are not something to be afraid of. At the end of a day, trolls are still trolls.

Not exactly. Highest ceiling player available. .......... Consider the choice between a player who has a 97% chance of being a "100" at his position AND a guy who has an 80% chance of being a "130" at his position. (let's say that there are only 2-4 "130's at that position in the entire league).......... I think they are willing to go the second way and use okay lower draft picks to move up into the first round. Also, if "those guys" (the freak guys) are not there, then they go BPA . (few teams are drafting for need these days)

Sorry.....................First two picks, go for pro bowl guys............. After that highest ceiling player available............. Fill "positions of need" with cheap young veterans and even hope that some turn out to be real good. ....................................They went for broke at QB and MLB last year.

IF they are not sure that either is a sure fire pro bowl guy, then trade down and get additional shots at such a guy at a different position.

Based upon last year I think that the Bills will do the following.: .................. The thinking is that we want to get to the superbowl or at least far into the playoffs. ,,,,,,, Unless you are just real real lucky, the way you do that is to have a number of absolute studs on the team who can dominate the opponent and make everyone else play better,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Sometimes you can get these guys in the 3rd and 4th round. Sometimes you win the top prize in PowerBall. (not a good plan). You might get these guys in a trade or FA, but you are paying thu the nose for them and should only do that if your are missing just one or two pieces (That is expensive and a crapshoot) ............. The way to get these few (3-7?) studs is to draft them in the first round or two of the draft. ................You can fill in the rest of the roster with "buy low-sell high" veteran FA's who are low risk to do an adequate or good job as well as crap shoots for high-ceiling but high risk guys in the later rounds of the draft........ SOOOOO,,,,, the Bills will look to get two guys in the first (or first and high second) rounds who are very high ceiling guys. They will be willing to add in some lower draft picks to move up to get these guys. After that, it is best player available highest ceiling player available for the rest of the draft. Holes in the roster are better filled by young veterans, who have shown they can do a workman-like job and are not going to be a rookie flame-out.